LGBT+ History Month UK

February is LGBT+ History Month in the United Kingdom, a time to celebrate and remember LGBT+ history.

The event is organized by Schools OUT UK, a charity that works to promote LGBT+ equality in education. The goal of LGBT+ History Month is to promote awareness and education about the history and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. It also aims to raise awareness of the ongoing struggles for equality and acceptance that the LGBT+ community still faces.

Follow LGBT+ History Month on social media –
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.
Their hashtags are: #LGBTplusHM, #Usualise, #educateOUTprejudice

To help promote awareness for LGBT+ History Month we want to share these incredible stories featuring memoirs, stories, historical fiction and romance.

• A rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars on Audible, and with 1,641 ratings 364 reviews on Goodreads. – ‘The Scottish Boy’ by Alex de Campi 

• “The Whale Tattoo’ is a stunning achievement – one of the most impressive and assured debuts I’ve ever read” – Matt Cain – ‘The Whale Tattoo’ by Jon Ransom 

• LONGLISTED For The Polari Prize 2022 – ‘Address Book’ by Neil Bartlett 

Download the full title list below.

1333. Edward III is at war with Scotland. Nineteen-year-old Sir Harry de Lyon yearns to prove himself and jumps at the chance when a powerful English baron, William Montagu, invites him on a secret mission with a dozen elite knights.

They ride north, to a crumbling Scottish keep, capturing a feral, half-starved boy within and putting the other inhabitants to the sword.

But nobody knows why the flower of English knighthood snuck over the border to capture a savage, dirty teenage boy. Montagu gives the boy to Harry as his squire, with only two rules: don’t let him escape, and convert him to the English cause.

At first, it’s hopeless. The Scottish boy is surly and violent and eats anything that isn’t nailed down. Then Harry begins to notice things: that, as well as Gaelic, the boy speaks flawless French, with an accent much different from Harry’s Norman one. That he can read Latin too. And when Harry finally convinces the boy – Iain mac Maíl Coluim – to cut his filthy curtain of hair, the face revealed is the most beautiful thing Harry has ever seen.

With Iain as his squire, Harry wins tournament after tournament and becomes a favourite of the King. But underneath the pageantry smoulder twin secrets: Harry and Iain’s growing passion for each other, and Iain’s mysterious heritage. As England hurtles towards war once again, these secrets will destroy everything Harry holds dear.

Address Book is the new work of fiction by the Costa-shortlisted author of “Skin Lane”. Neil Bartlett’s cycle of stories takes us to seven very different times and situations: from a new millennium civil partnership celebration to erotic obsession in a Victorian tenement, from a council-flat bedroom at the height of the AIDS crisis to a doctor’s living-room in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. They lead us through decades of change to discover hope in the strangest of places.

When a giant sperm whale washes up on the local beach and tells Joe Gunner that death will follow him wherever he goes. Joe knows that the place he needs to go is home.

Having stormed out two years ago, it won’t be easy. Nor will returning to the river alongside the house where words ripple beneath the muddy black water washing up all sorts of memories and disturbing prophecies.
Joe turns to his sister, Birdee, the only person who has ever listened and to Tim Fysh, a local fisherman and longtime lover – but reviving their bond leads to trouble.

Joe tells himself that the whale’s predictions are wrong but the river is relentless. As the waters settle, Joe learns the truth and finds that all of us can hate, but we can make a choice not to.

Two worlds, two timelines and one person’s impact.

Manhattan, 1963: weeks before the assassination of President Kennedy, fresh-faced Raymond Wallace lands in the New York Times newsroom on a three-month bursary from Cambridge University.

He soon discovers his elusive boss, Bukowski, is being covertly blackmailed by an estranged wife, and that he himself is to assist the straight-laced Doty on an article about the ‘explosion of overt homosexuality’. On an undercover assignment, a secret world is revealed to Raymond: a world in which he need no longer pretend to be something or someone he cannot be; a world in which he meets Joey.

Like so many men of his time and of his kind, Raymond faces a choice between conformity, courage and compartmentalization. The decision he makes will ricochet destructively through lives and decades until—in another time, another city; Paris, 2003—Raymond’s son Joe finally meets Joey. And the healing begins.

A raw, eye-opening memoir from a North East firefighter, charting her journey into the male dominated heart of the British Fire and Rescue Service.

Lifting the Fire Hydrant Lid follows young, idealistic recruit, Kate Fullen, as she negotiates training school and settles into life on the watch. With incidents and routine tasks woven into the fabric of the story, it describes the consuming pressure, emotional turmoil and unpredictable nature of the job.

Utilizing the rare perspective of a northern, queer, working-class female firefighter, Lifting the Fire Hydrant Lid examines the more intricate difficulties experienced by minority groups and gives a voice to a profession that is seldom heard and rarely seen.

For more information about these titles, or our full English catalogue contact Nadia on – nadia.lamond@sagaegmont.com or simply book a meeting.